Cancer is only a physical symptom of underlying emotional stress on the body and the body's cells. But how does emotional stress cause cancer in the body? And why does emotional stress only cause cancer in some people, while not in others?

For the majority of people, coping with stress and highly stressful or traumatic events or conflicts is dealt with, with relative ease. Although those in this larger group feel the devastating effects of stress, stressful events, trauma, and conflicts, including grief and loss – stressful events are seen as part of life's challenges, life's ups and downs, and they are for they most part anticipated and not completely unexpected. These people are able to move on with their lives quickly afterwards.

Those susceptible to cancer, are highly vulnerable to life's stresses and trauma, and feel unable to cope when life throws a curve-ball their way. These people are perfectionists and live in fear of conflict, stress, trauma and loss and are deeply frightened of negative events "happening" to them. And when faced with a highly stressful or traumatic event they have not anticipated, which inevitably happens during their life, react adversely and are unable to cope.

They experience Inescapable Shock and remain deeply affected by the experience. They have difficulty in expressing their inner grief, their inner pain, their inner anger or resentment, and genuinely feel there is no way out of the pain they are feeling inside. And because their mind cannot fathom what has happened, and remains in a state of disbelief or denial, these inner painful feelings are continually perpetuated, shooting up stress hormone levels, lowering melatonin and adrenaline levels, causing a slow breakdown of the emotional reflex centre in the brain, and creating the beginning of cancer progression in the body.

When faced with a major trauma, the cancer personality feels trapped and unable to escape from the memory of the traumatic experience and the painful feelings of the experience. Stress hormone cortisol levels skyrocket and remain at high levels, directly suppressing the immune system, whose job it is to destroy cancer cells that exist in every human being. High stress levels generally means a person cannot sleep well, and cannot produce enough Melatonin during deep sleep. Melatonin is responsible for inhibiting cancer cell growth. This means cancer cells are now free to multiply. Adrenaline levels also skyrocket initially, but are then drained and depleted over time. This is especially bad news for the cancer personality.

Adrenaline is responsible for transporting sugar away from cells. And when there is too much sugar in cells of the body, the body becomes acidic. This means normal body cells cannot breathe properly because of low oxygen. Cancer cells thrive in a low oxygen state, as demonstrated by Nobel Prize winner Otto Warburg. Cancer cells also thrive on sugar to keep them alive. Put simply, too much internal stress causes a depletion of adrenalin, leads to too much sugar in the body, resulting in the perfect environment for cancer cells to thrive in the body.

For the cancer personality, the news of being diagnosed with cancer and the fear and uncertainty of death represents another Inescapable Shock, creating another spike in stress hormone cortisol levels, and a further drop in melatonin and adrenalin levels. There is also a further breakdown of the emotional reflex centre in the brain that causes cells in the corresponding organ to slowly breakdown and become cancerous.

Learned helplessness is a key aspect of the cancer personality when facing a perceived inescapable shock, and is a strong developmental factor of cancer. Researcher Madelon Visintainer took three groups of rats, one receiving mild escapable shock, another group receiving mild in-escapable shock, and the third no shock at all. She then implanted each rat with cancer cells that would normally result in 50% of the rats developing a tumour. Her results were astonishing.

Within a month, 50% of the rats not shocked at all had rejected the tumour; this was the normal ratio. As for the rats that mastered shock by pressing a bar to turn it off, 70% had rejected the tumour. But only 27% of the helpless rats, the rats that had experienced in-escapable shock, rejected the tumour. This study demonstrates those who feel there is no way out of their shock / loss are less likely to be able to reject tumours forming within their body, due to high levels of stress weakening the immune system. [Seligman, 1998, p.170]

Cancer occurs at the cellular level. And there are a number of factors that create stress on the body's cells, causing them to become (1) depleted of adrenaline, (2) high in sugar and (3) low in oxygen, where they are more prone to mutate and become cancerous. The higher the sugar content of the cell caused by a depletion of adrenaline, and the lower the oxygen content, the greater the likelihood of normal cells mutating and becoming cancerous.

In the vast majority of those with cancer, there exists both a combination of psychological as well as physiological stresses that have contributed to the body's cells becoming depleted of adrenaline, high in sugar and low in oxygen, causing them to mutate and become cancerous.